Gym Automation Platform for US Gym
Overview
About US Gym Development Center
João Ribeiro, a former Olympian, and Michele Ribeiro, a collegiate gymnastics athlete, know a thing or two about gymnastics. Drawing on their joint skills as professional gymnasts, the Ribeiros opened their first gym, the U.S. Gymnastics Development Center, in 1988. Since that first facility, they’ve added a second location and over 20,000 square feet of training space.
Services
Before working with Saritasa, we were operating as if it was the 1980s. Now, we have a system where we can see customers’ data, add their credit card information, and store it safely. We can also run automatically instead of manually.
I’m most impressed by how Saritasa has achieved our vision, which no other company was willing to do. Our pricing is complex, so most providers told us to use existing programs for payment. However, we knew our specific system worked for us, so it was important to custom-build our system, which Saritasa has done, changing how we do business.
Allie GaissCOO of US Gymnastics Development Center
Their Challenge
US Gym offers a variety of programs, from cheer to ninja (a combination of gymnastics and obstacle courses) to tumbling, to classic gymnastics, and beyond. With two facilities to manage, a growing catalog of classes, and an ever-expanding client-based, they struggled to manage the administrative side of the business. Much of their back-office work relied on spreadsheets and a 10-year-old software that was never finished. Very little was automated, forcing them to manually run payments every month. While this worked when they were a smaller business, it began to hinder their growth potential.
Our Solution
US Gym needed a custom software solution to automate their unique business workflows and reduce manual labor. Previously, they’d developed a software tool for scheduling, but the platform was never completed or maintained.
Saritasa helped design, develop, deploy, and maintain a web-based gym management system to streamline their operations. The system handles everything from student registration to instructor management, flexible class scheduling, payment automation, and more.
Our Approach
What Saritasa Did
Complex Business Logic
Over their 30+ years in business, US Gymnastics developed specific business processes, making it difficult (if not impossible) to use off-to-the-shelf software systems for automation. They ran everything through spreadsheets, from class schedules to instructor assignments to even membership payments. Our team took the time to understand their specific workflows and translate them into custom software.
Scheduling System
The software includes a calendar for scheduling classes, instructors, and attendees. There’s a wide variety of different class types, from Mommy & Me classes to Ninja classes and more. Each class functions slightly differently, some are mandatory while others may accept drop-ins. Some classes may have queues if they fill up. All attendance is tracked in the system for billing purposes.
Payment Management
Before the new system, it took their team days to manually run all the payments through a terminal. Now they can run all their payments in under an hour. The payments are mostly handled through Stripe, but also accept cash or check. Discounting and class types were the most complex part of the logic. Classes are charged differently based on single classes, monthly classes, drop-in visits, etc. There are also discounts based on the number of kids a family signs up, early payments, and multi-class pricing.
Front & Backend Development
Our team handled both the front-end and back-end development of the gym management system. We built the front-end in Angular, while the back-end was developed in Python. The entire platform is hosted on AWS for flexible scaling. Our team provides ongoing support and maintenance to the system, with additional functionality in the works.
